Recipe: Curly Kale and Sweet Potato Hash (V)

So I have had to change my diet completely due to my gestational diabetes. Luckily this time round I am not on any medication but I’ve been giving the diabetes blood sugar testing kit so no cheating! I have to abide by my new diet rules and portion control to prevent baby from becoming too big.

I had a group meeting with the diabetic nurse and dietician last Wednesday and we went over the foods we can and can’t eat. To top it off, I’ve only gained 0.5kg since the start of the pregnancy so it means somewhere along the way I lost a lot of my weight and gained it as baby weight. It’s quite sad because the dietician has now said I need to start putting some more weight on.

It’s almost like a catch 22 as I am scared to gain the weight as I don’t want baby to be too big but because of the little weight gain, I have no choice but to do so.

So I’ve been checking out the GI index of foods and seeing what my best options are. I created this little recipe a while back when I was trying to experiment with curly kale. It’s so simple, super healthy and nutritious, suitable for vegetarians/vegans and has a low GI index – basically a winning recipe! I even made up the name for it… Curly Kale and Sweet Potato Hash 🙂

So without further ado, here is my recipe:

Curly Kale and Sweet Potato Hash Recipe

Time: prep – 5mins, cooking – 30mins
Servings: 2-4 people

Ingredients:

A bag of curly kale (washed)

2 sweet potatoes (unpeeled)

2tbs Dark soy sauce

1 tbs of cooking oil

Method:

Fill the saucepan with water and boil the sweet potatoes with their skin left on. Boil until softened which took me about 20 mins on a high heat.

Drain the water and place the sweet potatoes to one side to cool down. Once they’ve cooled, peel the skin and throw away then dice them.

Add a little bit of oil (1tbs) to the dry pan and turn the heat to medium/high. Add in the curly kale and stir frequently.

Fry the curly kale for about 3 mins and add in the soy sauce. Adjust to your taste but I usually give it a generous drizzle. Use a light, low-salt soy sauce if you are concerned about the salt content but as we are not adding any extra salt, I like to use dark soy sauce.

When the curly kale has decreased in volume from the cooking, add in the diced sweet potatoes.

Add a splash of water to help create some steam which will also help to cook the kale nicely and cook for another 2-3 mins.

All finished!

Take off the heat and leave to cool. Eat it on its own or serve with rice or cous cous. I like to just eat it by itself to help cut out the carbs and it’s so filling, I don’t mind it without any meat or poultry but if you did want to eat it, I think grilled chicken would go nicely. Enjoy!